Episode 127: Silicon Valley vs. Science Fiction: "Difficult Geniuses"

Tony Stark showing off his brilliance and swagger in 2008’s Iron Man

When tech whizkids are caught behaving badly, they're just being "brilliant jerks." And the figure of the charismatic-but-bratty genius inventor is everywhere these days. We look at how the isolated, tormented mad scientist in science fiction evolved into the sexy asshole that everyone wants to be. And we talk to Christopher Cantwell, co-creator of Halt and Catch Fire and recently writer of the Iron Man comic, about how Tony Stark has changed.

Notes, Citations, & Etc.

Christopher Cantwell on Twitter and Instagram

Here are Christopher Cantwell’s issues of Iron Man and all his work for Marvel.

Cantwell was one of the creators of the TV show Halt and Catch Fire.

Arianna Huffington famously referred to leaders at Uber as “brilliant jerks”.

In 2018, Tech Republic ran an article about dealing with difficult genius engineers

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the figure of the mad scientist emerges

H.G. Wells wrote The Island of Doctor Moreau, which Silvia Moreno-Garcia revisted in The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

J. Robert Oppenheimer helped create the nuclear bomb and became an icon for his work against nuclear proliferation, and his famous expressions of regret

Steve Jobs became an iconic figure as a genius who could be hard to work with

These days, every obnoxious genius has to give a TED Talk in movies and TV

We sometimes forget a lot of important people who contributed to tech, says Cantwell — like the Apple One and the Homebrew Computer Club, Dona Bailey who designed the game Centipede, and Grace Hopper